The Antifederalists disliked the new Constitution because they feared that it was making a federal government that would have too much power. They felt this both because of what the Constitution did and because of what it did not do.

The Antifederalists felt that the federal government set up by the Constitution was too strong relative to the state governments. Under the Articles of Confederation, the national government had had very few powers. It could not, for example, impose taxes on the people. It had no executive or judiciary. The Antifederalists liked this situation and did not want to move to one in which the federal government had more power than the states did.

The Antifederalists also felt that there was nothing in the Constitution to protect the people from the federal government. There were no specific guarantees that the federal government would not take away the rights of the people. The Constitution, as first written, had none of the protections that were later added in the Bill of Rights.

For these reasons, the Antifederalists felt the Constitution gave too much power to the federal government.